


All Summer

by daydreamy



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-04
Updated: 2011-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-23 10:19:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daydreamy/pseuds/daydreamy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd looked for her like he promised, the trouble was he kept finding her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Summer

**Author's Note:**

> HI all,
> 
> Thanks for reading - I just really wanted River and Eleven to have some stolen time all to themselves to build a connection prior to LKH

“You’ve had all summer, have you found her?”

 

By her count at least, he had a whole summer of looking. But that was a lie. He’d had so much more time than that. It would be a lie to say he’d looked for her the whole time. The trouble was…he found her right away and kept on finding her again and again.

 

The first time he found her he was walking down an alleyway on a dark, drizzly night in New York, scanning the gritty pavement with his sonic. Broken glass crunched under his shoes, as the shabby denizens of the street carefully pretended not to notice the strangely dressed man doing equally strange things. _Yes_! The readings were off the charts, this was right, someone had regenerated here. And really, how many people in the universe could do that? Had to be her. But she’d left traces everywhere and so many hungry creatures would be drawn to the energy, so many would be able to see its traces as he had. He needed equipment; he would have to clean up this mess. He was turning on his heel to walk back into his tardis thinking that just maybe he could rig up a sort of photoneutralizer, when he noticed a figure moving a glowing instrument slowly over the bricks at the end of the alley. Instantly, the readings on his sonic disappeared.

 

He pounded down the alley. “Hey wait.” The figure turned and stepped into a misty halo of light from the nearest streetlamp. As she turned her face to him, drops of rain clung to her ringlets, glowing like faint stars.

 

“Hello Sweetie.”

 

“What are you doing?” He was suddenly angry. When would this maddening, impossible woman stop infuriating him? He grabbed her by arm and gave her a little shake. “If I didn’t know better, River, I’d say you were covering your own tracks.” She met his eyes silently with that sad, stoic look he knew too well. But, for the first time he noticed what she was doing – how could he have missed it before? She was pulling all her thoughts and emotions within herself, locking them firmly behind a cold stony wall in her mind, so that even a strongly telepathic Time Lord couldn’t pick up on her thoughts.

It hurt to do that. He knew all too well how lonely it felt behind that wall.

 

“Don’t you want me to find you?” He relaxed his grip on her arm. She was working so hard to be strong for him. How many times had he forced her to do that without even realizing what he asked of her?  He traced his fingers up and down her arm absently mindedly.

 

“When are you?” she asked simply.

 

“Demon’s run, not even two days ago.”

 

“I haven’t done that one yet, but I know what happens.” She spoke in a forced casual tone was studiously avoiding his gaze. “I hate stories of Demon’s run and so _of course_ it becomes mythic – people will talk about it until the end of time.” She shook the silvery instrument in her hand and checked the readings, “All clear, that should make the streets of New York a bit safer. And yes, I’m covering my tracks.” She leaned into him and kissed him on the cheek, “but never from you, I _always_ want you to find me.” She laid her head on his shoulder.

 

He felt his cheeks flush a little as he slowly put his arms around her. They stood there together in their circle of light, safe for just a moment from the dark press of time.

 

“I’ll have to do Demon’s run soon,” she said softly, her voice muffled against his jacket. “It’s all happening so quickly now, I can feel myself slipping further and further backwards…” She lifted her head and looked at him, “and then you’ll stop knowing me.” Her voice held the hint of a question he could not answer and so he kissed her instead. He kissed her properly like he wished he’d done that first time in the prison, instead of being nervous and rubbish. He let his hands wander up and down her back, finally settling on running them into the tangle of her hair, as she pushed herself into him. He had so many questions for her, _how close was she?_ They would all have to wait. Questions would just remind her that he was moving further away and tonight he wanted to just be with her.

 

“So we’re in New York, it’s1970 – what do you say we find something fun to do?”

 

 

 

The second time he found her she really needed his help. That must have been why he ended up there, on the extreme edge of the universe. He casually walked out of his tardis and into a firefight – smoke blackened the sky and all around him were the sounds of battle. A mortar exploded far too close, it sent deafening waves of sound crashing over him. As he tried to make his way through the blinding smoke, a soldier barreled into him and he was knocked flat on the ground, the soldier landing hard beside him, cursing loudly.

 

He sat up and laughed out loud. The woman beside him froze at the sound.

 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve heard anyone curse in old high Galllifreyan. It’s brilliant; such colorful vocabulary shouldn’t go to waste.”

 

“Doctor, get down!” She launched herself at him and knocked him to the ground just as a shot whizzed overhead. They scrambled behind a kind of low stone wall that had been erected to serve as a barricade against the onslaught of fire for the as-yet-unnamed-foes.

 

“Who are you fighting, Doctor Song?”

 

“Doesn’t matter, it’s not your fight. What are you doing here?”

 

Now that they were behind the barricade the smoke cleared a little and he could see her properly. She looked terrible…terrible and young. She’d taken her age down at least twenty years and her youthful face was thin and gaunt, like she hadn’t eaten a good meal in weeks. There was a serious looking gash across her temple that was oozing blood down the side of her face.

 

“Maybe I’m here to save you, you look like you could use a good saving.”

 

She turned to face him, a familiar teasing smile breaking across her face, even through the dirt and blood she was beautiful, her eyes shining and a little mischievous. But before she’d even turned all the way, she was knocking him aside. Her expression hardened into a grimace as she leapt to her feet, pulling a dagger out of her utility belt and stabbing upwards into the gut of a ferocious, green-scaled warrior. The creature looked down in surprise at the hilt of the dagger, dropping what looked like a blowgun, and then staggered backwards, clawed hands clutching his abdomen.

 

River stood over him and then swayed on the spot, her eyes rolling. He caught her before she fell and managed to carry her, slung over his shoulder into the tardis. He’d been shocked at how insubstantial she felt, like no weight at all.

 

Once he had her safely away, he tucked her into the med-bay’s only bed and treated the laceration on her neck. She’d taken a poisoned dart that would surely have hit him if she hadn’t shoved him aside. It took him days and three transfusions of his own blood to get the poison out of her system. Finally she regained consciousness and demanded a hot shower. He stood nervously outside the bathroom door listening to her cry bitterly. She refused to tell him anything about the circumstances of the battle. Eventually he got tired of asking and just focused on feeding her up a bit.

 

He took her to Italy in the last part of the 18th century, that’s where he discovered that she loved anything baked with parmesan cheese, a nice dry sparkling wine, and him (in that order, she was quick to point out). He’d known she’d loved him of course, she’d died to save him, but that had always felt slightly theoretical, like something that had happened to a character in a book. Now it was visceral.

 

They lay together in a sunny field, with her legs sprawled over his and his head nestled against her chest and watched the evening colors spread across the sky. For the first time in a very long while, he didn’t want to go anywhere. “Let’s play house for a while,” River suggested – and so they did.

 

River was gifted with the psychic paper. She’d managed to procure rooms that looked out over a palazzo, because he’d remarked that he’d like something with a view of people doing things. Their bedroom had tall, beamed ceilings, a huge feather bed and three eastern-facing windows. She’d throw open the shutters in the morning and fill the room with light and the sounds of people living perfectly ordinary lives.

 

They allowed themselves the luxury of this fiction. During the day, they’d take long walks into the countryside or take trips to swim in the ocean. He helped her improve her Gallifreyan, she knew more than the swear words, of course, but her verb tenses were rubbish. At night, they slipped into the crowds at the opera and snuck into elaborate balls and, on one memorable evening, they crashed a royal wedding.

 

On one particularly fine morning he stood by their bed, watching the morning light illuminate her curves. She was unabashedly naked and the sunbeams washed over her skin like honey, turning her into a shining radiant creature. He was reminded that in the entire universe this was the only other person like him, and she was mad and impossible and perfect. When he’d finally gotten up the nerve to ask he learned that she’d regenerated twice already. He could have lifetimes with her, but he knew for a stone cold fact that if he found her infant self and laid her in Amy’s arms he’d be erasing this version of her. She wouldn’t talk about it, but that much was obvious.

 

She noticed him staring at her. “What is it?”

 

“They only have light like that here before the industrial age,” he told her, “after the factories come it’s never the same.”

 

“Oh my professor, always with you it’s a history lesson” she teased him, pulling him back into bed and wrapping her sinuous legs around his hips. She knew what he was thinking, she almost always did. She did her best to distract him. Later as they lay, pleasantly tired, in each other’s arms, she raised herself up on her elbows so that she could look down at him.

 

“You know it’s really my choice, right? You don’t get to feel guilty this time. I choose you, I chose you a long time ago.”

 

“They’re your parents.”

 

“And you’re my…well you know.”

 

“No, actually I don’t know.” He pulled her back down and rolled on top of her. “You. Should. Really. Marry. Me,” He told her, punctuating each word with a kiss.

 

“Sometime, I will.”

 

Eventually she made him take her back to Stormcage. “I have to spend some time there. As far as they are concerned I’ve been gone about three days.”

 

“How long has it been for you?” He was standing behind her in the bathroom aboard the Tardis as she studied her now appropriately-aged face in the mirror.

 

“Oh, a few decades I suppose.”

 

The next time he found her she was standing alone on the edge of a great silvery lake. Further down the shore, a group of people were pushing a long burning boat into the water. The day was grey and bitterly cold, her hair whipped around savagely in the wind.

 

He walked to her side.  He ached to kiss her, to fold her in his arms. It had been mere months for him since they’d been together in Italy, but something had shifted between them. So he just stood there with her.

 

“What happened?”

 

“What always happens to the people who love us. I made an enemy, he paid the price.”

 

Maybe hours passed before she spoke again, her eyes still hazily focused on the spot where the smoldering boat had finally slipped beneath the waves.

 

“They believe that the fire transforms the body, fills it with light and heat and speeds the soul into the next realm. I think that’s a really beautiful lie.” Her voice sounded hard.

 

“How do you know it’s a lie?”

 

“Because I want to believe it too badly.” She turned towards him now, not quite a stranger, but so much more distant, so guarded.

 

She met his gaze and he could see it in her eyes, “You’re young.”

 

“I’m really not, I’m 126.”

 

“Well that’s barely out of your teens for a Time Lord.”

 

“And, it’s lifetimes for a human.”

 

 He realized he had no idea how old River had been those first times he met her, but she’d been much older than this – there was an edge to this River, she was still struggling with life, as young people will do. And there was something darker there too, something dangerous. He stood there helplessly; there was nothing he could do to change this for her. People would die – unless she kept moving, jumping through time, never getting too attached.

 

“You’re so much braver than me. I never stay this long.”

 

When she stepped away, a chill had settled over her face.

 

“You need to go.” 

 

“Why?”

 

“Because you are not going to be able to stop what happens next.” She pushed back her long black coat to reveal two deadly-looking guns hanging from her belt. Without a word she turned on her heel and walked away from him.

 

 

 

He found her again later that same week, or really she found him, she sent him a message and he caught her as she jumped from the Hindenburg. She swore she had nothing to do with it, but honestly he didn’t even care because she was his River again. She remembered Italy. She took one look at his face and announced that she’d travel with him on the tardis for a while.

 

She was there to hear Amy’s message, to see the conflict in his eyes.

 

“It’s time now,” she said softly, taking both his hands in hers. She leaned her forehead against his and called him by his name, she said it over and over again – like a prayer.  “Promise me, that you won’t forget that I love you, even when I don’t know myself, please promise me.”

 

“I promise.”

 

When he dropped her off that evening she handed him an envelope before kissing him goodbye. When he opened it he found a yellowing newspaper and headed off to keep his promise.


End file.
